Approaches to Language Variation: Goals and Objectives of the Spanish Heritage Language Syllabus

Abstract

Traditionally, teaching standard Spanish has been at the center of Spanish as a heritage language (SHL) instruction (Bernal-Enríquez & Hernández-Chávez, 2003; Hidalgo, 1990, 1997; Leeman, 2005; Martínez, 2003; Valdés, 1978, 1997; Villa 1996, 2002). A growing number of SHL scholars, however, have advocated for shifting the focus of instruction to the students’ language varieties and to dialect awareness (Bernal-Enríquez & Hernández-Chávez, 2003; Leeman, 2005; Villa, 2000). In the fall of 2011, a total of 62 SHL syllabi were collected from four-year public and private universities located in 15 different U.S. states. A content analysis of the course goals and objectives was employed to determine the approach to language variation that each course adopted (eradication, expansion, appreciation, appropriateness-based, or critical). In order to establish reliability, two coders independently categorized the course goals and objectives in all syllabi, obtaining an acceptable inter-rater agreement level. Findings show that earlier eradication approaches have almost disappeared while appreciation approaches are gaining popularity. Other more recent approaches have been adopted in only a small number of syllabi. The results corroborate prior research showing that the teaching of the standard continues to be a central goal in SHL education (Valdés et al., 2006). In addition, SHL courses have been slow to adopt sociolinguistically rich practices.